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From the Album: "A Pause in the Desert" (2010)

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COLIE PARKS PHOTOSHOOT

The Story

A Pause in the Desert draws from a wide range of influences, blending elements of rock, jazz, indie, and country into a sound that, while rooted in the tradition of American music, pushes beyond it as well.

The band's self-titled and debut album, A Pause in the Desert, is set for release in January, 2011. With competent musicianship and subtle emotional undertones, the album offers an engaging listening experience. Each song presents a new and striking melody that you can't help but hum hours later. The lyrics are modest and inquisitive and anything but pushy. Often minimalist in their instrumentation, each song leaves the listener with something beautiful: an auditory version of the seasons changing, or a solitary drive through the night.

A Pause in The Desert taps into a place of observation and self-reflection, leaving the listener quieted, thoughtful, and satisfied. I'll be keeping my eye on these guys.

- Brian Squillace

A Pause in The Desert is a Jacksonville, Florida based band headed by musicians Josh Worden and Michael Valenzano. The band formed in early 2010 and will be releasing their first album, A Pause in the Desert, on January 29.

Another Story

It was humid, the night that is, when we sat outside. Ideas sprouted like green stalks through fertile soil for the first time—overnight and seemingly out of nowhere. In truth, certainty of time and space has never been our strong suit. Such details are rather unimpressive anyways.

What we do know is that a brew of late night, Bourbon, and a blended Cavendish took the form of a musical impetus. Sitting among friends in a pensive atmosphere on a debilitated Riverside porch, we met. While we watched each other’s pulsing embers pacing to and from our mouths, we shared.

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Blue and yellow is crisp grass between your toes.

A pallet is to a painting as a note is to sound. But to me, it’s more than just an analogy, more than just two entities that are perpetually parallel. To me, it’s a partnership. Every melody is a pallet. Mixing two is never the same as mixing another two.

Blue and red is the scarf around a delicate neck, promenading in a diligent wind.

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I sit on the nervous bench. It’s thin legs sigh at my weight—a familiar friend. Melodies are keys to a closet, a heart, a treasure.

I don’t know what I’m doing here, but that’s typical for me. Words always come, and I listen. But it’s from my fingers and in my head, and now I can’t forget.

Composing is my Mona Lisa. I don’t know this yet, but that’s probably because I’m not dead. We only live forever in the things that we create.

Or that’s what I believe, anyways.

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Together we work as a partially productive human. Everything is important. Any element of the world can be used. The product, our product, we like to describe as a “soundscape.” The floor, our hands, other people - it's all valuable.

The Chicken, or the Egg?

Taking advantage of every element creates a cycle. It’s impossible to define a beginning or an end. We’re lovers to music, but not just.

Literature, characters, settings.

Art, canvas, clay.

Music, notes, chorus, bridge.

It’s all Fiction; a depiction of our minds. But if it’s real to us, then it’s real somewhere. That’s what matters. That’s what makes something loveable, something beautiful. If not to the ears, then to the eyes.

If music is what we do, or who we are, then it’s our responsibility to help it prosper.